Does Organic CTR Impact SEO Rankings? [New&nbspData]

The author's views are entirely his or her own (excluding the unlikely event of hypnosis) and may not always reflect the views of Moz.

[Estimated read time: 13 minutes]

Does organic click-through rate (CTR) data impact page rankings? This has been a huge topic of debate for years within the search industry.

Some people think the influence of CTR on rankings is nothing more than a persistent myth. Like the one where humans and dinosaurs lived together at the same time — you know, like in that reality series "The Flintstones"?

Some other people are convinced that Google must look at end user data. Because how in the world would Google know which pages to rank without it?

Google (OK, at least one Google engineer who spoke at SMX) seems to indicate the latter is indeed the case:

And if true, we ought to be able to measure it! In this post, I’m going to try to show that RankBrain may just be the missing link between CTR and rankings.

Untangling meaning from Google RankBrain confusion

Let's be honest: Suddenly, everyone is claiming to be a RankBrain expert. RankBrain-shaming is quickly becoming an industry epidemic.

Please ask yourself: Do most of these people — especially those who aren't employed by Google, but even some of the most helpful and well-intentioned spokespeople who actually work for Google — thoroughly know what they're talking about? I've seen a lot of confusing and conflicting statements floating around.

If this really smart guy who works at Google doesn't know what RankBrain does, how in the heck does some random self-proclaimed SEO guru definitively know all the secrets of RankBrain? They must be one of those SEOs who "knew" RankBrain was coming, even before Google announced it publicly on October 26, but just didn't want to spoil the surprise.

Now let's go to two of the most public Google figures: Gary Illyes and John Mueller.

Illyes seemed to shoot down the idea that RankBrain could become the most important ranking factor (something which I strongly believe is inevitable). Google's Greg Corrado publicly stated that RankBrain is "the third-most important signal contributing to the result of a search query."

Illyes also said on Twitter that: "Rankbrain lets us understand queries better. No affect on crawling nor indexing or replace anything in ranking." But then later clarified: “...it does change ranking."

I don't disagree at all. It hasn't. (Not yet, anyway.)

Links still matter. Content still matters. Hundreds of other signals still matter.

It's just that RankBrain had to displace something as a ranking signal. Whatever used to be Google's third most important signal is no longer the third most important signal. RankBrain couldn't be the third most important signal before it existed!

Now let's go to Mueller. He believes machine learning will gain more prominence in search results, noting Bing and Yandex do a lot of this already. He noted that machine learning needs to be tested over time, but there are a lot of interesting cases where Google's algorithm needs a system to react to searches it hasn't seen before.

Bottom line: RankBrain, like other new Google changes, is starting out as a relatively small part of the Google equation today. RankBrain won't replace other signals any time soon (think of it simply like this: Google is adding a new ingredient to your favorite dish to make it even tastier). But if RankBrain delivers great metrics and keeps users happy, then surely it will be given more weight and expanded in the future.

RankBrain headaches

If you want to nerd out on RankBrain, neural networks, semantic theory, word vectors, and patents, then you should read:

To be clear: my goal with this post isn't to discuss tweets from Googlers, patents, research, or speculative theories.

Rather, I’m just going to ignore EVERYBODY and look at actual click data.

Searching for Rankbrain

Rand conducted one of the most popular tests of the influence of CTR on Google's search results. He asked people to do a specific search and click on the link to his blog (which was in 7th position). This impacted the rankings for a short period of time, moving the post up to 1st position.

But these are all transient changes. Changes don’t persist.

It's like how you can’t increase your AdWords Quality Scores simply by clicking on your own ads a few times. This is the oldest trick in the book and it doesn't work.

The results of another experiment appeared on Search Engine Land last August and concluded that CTR isn't a ranking factor. But this test had a pretty significant flaw — it relied on bots artificially inflating CTRs and search volume (and this test was only for a single two-word keyword: "negative SEO"). So essentially, this test was the organic search equivalent of click fraud. Google AdWords has been fighting click fraud for 15 years and they can easily apply these learnings to organic search. What did I just say about old tricks?

Before we look at the data, a final "disclaimer." I don’t know if what this data reveals is definitively RankBrain, or another CTR-based ranking signal that's part of the core Google algorithm. Regardless, there's something here — and I can most certainly say with confidence that CTR is impacting rank. For simplicity, I’ll be referring to this as Rankbrain.

A crazy new experiment

Google has said that RankBrain is being tested on long-tail terms, which makes sense. Google wants to start testing its machine-learning system with searches they have little to no data on — and 99.9 percent of pages have zero external links pointing to them.

So how is Google able to tell which pages should rank in these cases? By examining engagement and relevance. CTR is one of the best indicators of both.

Head terms, as far as we know, aren't being exposed to RankBrain right now. So by observing the differences between the organic search CTRs of long-tail terms versus head terms, we should be able to spot the difference:

We used 1,000 keywords in the same keyword niche (to isolate external factors like Google shopping and other SERP features that can alter CTR characteristics). The keywords are all from my own website: Wordstream.com.

I compared CTR versus rank for 1–2 word search terms, and did the same thing for long-tail keywords (4–10 word search terms).

Notice how the long-tail terms get much higher average CTRs for a given position. For example, in this data set, the head term in position 1 got an average CTR of 17.5 percent, whereas the long-tail term in position 1 had a remarkably high CTR, at an average of 33 percent.

Long-tail terms in this same vertical get higher CTRs than head terms. However, the difference between long-tail and head term CTR is very small in positions 1–2, and becomes huge as you go out to lower positions.

So in summary, something unusual is happening:

In paid search, long-tail and head terms do roughly the same CTR in high ad spots (1–2) and see huge differences in CTR for lower spots (3–7).

But in organic search, the long-tail and head terms in spots (1–2) have huge differences in CTR and very little difference as you go down the page.

Why are the same keywords behaving so differently in organic versus paid?

The difference (we think) is that RankBrain is boosting the search rankings of pages that have higher organic click-through rates.

Not convinced yet?

Which came first: the CTR or the ranking?

CTR and ranking are codependent variables. There’s obviously a relationship between the two, but which is causing what? In order to get to the bottom of this “chicken versus egg” situation, we’re going to have to do a bit more analysis.

The following graph takes the difference between an observed organic search CTR minus the expected CTR, to figure out if your page is beating — or being beaten by — the expected average CTR for a given organic position.

By only looking at the extent by which a keyword beats or is beaten by the predicted CTR, you are essentially isolating the natural relationship between CTR and ranking in order to get a better picture of what’s going on.

We found on average, that if you beat the expected CTR, then you're far more likely to rank in more prominent positions. Failing to beat the expected CTR makes it more likely you'll appear in positions 6–10.

So, based on our example of long-tail search terms for this niche, if a page:

Beats the expected CTR for a given position by 20 percent, you're likely to appear in position 1.

Beats beat the expected CTR for a given position by 12 percent, then you're likely to appear in position 2.

Falls below the expected CTR for a given position by 6 percent, then you're likely to appear in position 10.

And so on.

Here's a greatly simplified rule of thumb:

The more your pages beat the expected organic CTR for a given position, the more likely you are to appear in prominent organic positions.

Want to move up by one position in Google's rankings? Increase your CTR by 3 percent. Want to move up another spot? Increase your CTR by another 3 percent.

If you can’t beat the expected click-through rate for a given position, you’re unlikely to appear in positions 1–5.

Essentially, you can think of all of this as though Google is giving bonus points to pages that have high click-through rates. The fact that it looks punitive is just a natural side effect.

If Google gives "high CTR bonus points" to other websites, then your relative performance will decline. It's not that you got penalized; it's just you're the only one who didn't get the rewards.

A simple example: The Long-tail Query That Could

Here’s one quick example from our 1000-keyword data set. For the query: “email subjects that get opened,” this page has a ridiculously high organic CTR of 52.17%, which beats the expected CTR for the top spot in this vertical by over 60%. It also generates insanely great engagement rates, including a time on page of over 24 minutes.

We believe that these two strong engagement metrics send a clear signal to Google that the page matches the query’s intent, despite not having an exact keyword match in the content.

What does Google want?

A lot of factors go into ranking. We know links, content, and RankBrain are the top 3 search ranking factors in Google's algorithm. But there are hundreds of additional signals Google looks at.

So let's make this simple. Your website is a house.

This is a terrible website. It was built a long time ago and has received no SEO love in a long time (terrible structure, markup, navigation, content, etc). It ranks terribly. Nobody visits it. And those poor souls who do stumble across it wish they never had and quickly leave, wondering why it even exists.

This website is pretty good. It's designed well. It's obviously well-maintained. It addresses all the SEO essentials. Everything is optimized. It ranks reasonably well. A good amount of people visit and hang out a while since, hey, it has everything you'd expect in a website nowadays.

Now we get to the ultimate house. It has everything you could want in a website — beautifully designed, great content, and optimized in every way possible. It owns tons of prominent search positions and everyone goes here to visit (the parties are AMAZING) again and again because of the amazing experience — and they're very likely to tell their friends about it after they leave.

People love this house. Google goes where the people are. So Google rewards it.

This is the website you need to look like to Google.

No fair, right? The big house gets all the advantages!

Wrong!

So now what the heck do I do?

A bunch of articles say that there’s absolutely nothing you can or should do to optimize your site for Rankbrain today, and for any future updates. I couldn’t disagree more.

If you want to rank better, you need to get more people to YOUR party. This is where CTR comes in.

It appears that Google RankBrain has been "inspired by" AdWords and manyothertechnologies that look at user engagement signals to determine page quality and relevance. And RankBrain is learning how to assign ratings to pages that may have insufficient link or historical page data, but are relevant to a searcher's query.

So how do you raise your CTRs? You should focus your efforts in four key areas:

Optimize pages with low "organic Quality Scores." Download all of your query data from Google Search Console. Sort your data, figure out which of your pages have below average CTRs, and prioritize those — it's far less risky to focus on fixing your losers because they have the most potential upside. None of these pages will get any love from RankBrain!

Combine your SEO keywords with emotional triggers to create irresistible headlines.Emotions like anger, disgust, affirmation, and fear are proven to increase click-through rates and conversion rates. If everyone who you want to beat already has crafted optimized title tags, then packing an emotional wallop will give you the edge you need and make your listing stand out.

Increase other user engagement rates. Like click-through rate, we believe you need to have higher-than-expected engagement metrics (e.g. time on site, bounce rate — more on this in a future article). This is a critical relevance signal! Google knows the expected conversion and engagement rates based on a variety of factors (e.g. industry, query, location, time of day, device type). So create 10X content!

Key summary

Whether or not RankBrain becomes the most important ranking signal (and I believe it will be someday), it's smart to ensure your pages get as many organic search clicks as possible. It means more people are visiting your site and it sends important signals to Google that your page is relevant and awesome.

Our research also shows that achieving above-expected user engagement metrics result in better organic rankings, which results in even more clicks to your site.

Don’t settle for average CTRs. Be a unicorn among a sea of donkeys! Raise your organic CTRs and engagement rates! Get optimizing now!

Hi Larry - thanks for the great post and for sharing the data so transparently; you've always been really generous with the SEO community and with Moz, and it's greatly appreciated.

I know you took some flack for some comments about Rankbrain, and that it rubbed you the wrong way. I totally empathize with that frustration. I also think that, beneath some of the less-than-kind words, there was some fair critiques. Namely, most all of the Googlers who've spoken about Rankbrain have described it the same way - as a query interpretation system. It can result in rankings changing, for sure, but it's less because it re-orders results directly, and more because it causes a word or phrase to be interpreted as having a different (or more nuanced) intent. I thought Google's Andrey Lipattsev did a really nice job describing the system and answering a bunch of questions about it very directly here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l8VnZCcl9J4

My point is just that Rankbrain might not be the only (or even the primary) system at Google that's using CTR signals. As the deck from Paul Haahr you linked to points out, Google uses click data to quality-check their overall results! Rankbrain might be using CTR, but Google's organic rankings are most definitely using them, at the very least to check performance, and almost certainly to re-order rankings when there's a spike of queries/interest (as we've seen with experiments like the ones I keep doing on stages).

In many ways, though, the takeaways section is where your advice really shines, and where I don't think anyone can disagree. Even if there are SEOs out there who believe Google is doing absolutely nothing with any system that measures or includes CTR, who cares?! You still want to maximize the traffic you earn from Google, and that means maximizing CTR (and then keeping those people engaged with your amazing content house - I liked that analogy).

p.s. One tiny nitpick - Paul Haahr did say that Google didn't understand exactly what Rankbrain is doing (because of the machine learning elements of the system), but I don't think we should take that statement too broadly. Rankbrain was still designed to do query interpretation, and I doubt it's getting sentient and tugging on other parts of Google's systems (at least not yet) :-)

Hi Rand, I think we're on the same page here. here's what i wrote in the post:

Before we look at the data, a final "disclaimer." I don’t know if what this data reveals is definitively RankBrain, or another CTR-based ranking signal that's part of the core Google algorithm. Regardless, there's something here — and I can most certainly say with confidence that CTR is impacting rank. For simplicity, I’ll be referring to this as Rankbrain.

I think CTR is used by both core search algo in various ways and is one of the signals (among others) that are used to power rankbrain's query interpretation. However this experiment was designed to try to "isolate rankbrain" from other factors that impact the (ctr vs. ranking) relationship.

That's all well and good, but doesn't take into account competitors intentionally bouncing, creating 404 errors manually, and conducting other behavior to negatively influence your placement because they read those tactics worked on someone's blog...

We know this behavior happens with paid ads... We also know this behavior happens with organic results.

Hy Elisa, yes google always gives our money back. But our competitors need to be on top. That's why they are clicking us. Because we rank good in paid ads, and if they finish our budget, they could be on top in that period.

Hy Scott, we have the same problem with our website. A competitor has a campaign for clicking our paid ads, but also intentionally bouncing on organic results on diferent keywords. I can detect them because they use a proxy server, and usually the clicks come form a diferent country. Do you know any good software solutions for protection?

Yes, I agree. It seems that CTR empowers rankbrain's query interpretation, If that is a given, does this shape your calls to action and ways to drive user engagement onpage? And how you handle negative SEO? This algorithm change seems to be reshaping SEO.

Thanks Jeannie - you made my day. If you believe (as i do) that CTR and user engagement signals are powering "rankbrain, a query interpretation that may change rank" - then we should be putting increasing focus on improving CTR and other user engagement signals (bounce rate, conversion rates, etc.) -- i wrote about this in my Rankbrain survival guide here: http://www.wordstream.com/blog/ws/2016/03/16/rankb...

Keep in mind that (a) this article is a FUTURE looking piece and includes predictions of things that haven't happened YET -- i got in trouble from a bunch of people because they didn't realize it was a future looking article of what *may* happen (b) that even if rankbrain and/or other google search algos have nothing to do with CTR, it still makes sense to increase CTRs and engagement rates.

TL;DR: You're right. But I think the bigger angle is that there are two machine learning portions to Google's overall algorithm. 1) Measuring CTR 2) Using measured CTR data to learn more about nuanced meanings of search queries (aka Rank Brain).

Great article. Glad I'm not the only one who sees this. My actual theory is that Google isn't limiting itself to just one machine-learning piece of code. The ranking signals theory (and my own experiments) show that there is a quantitative learning logic that Google is applying to CTR and rankings. But I think this is separate from Rank Brain (very thin line...). This small quantitatively focused machine learning model focuses on short-term view. What pages are performing best that other users want?

On the flip-side, I think what Rank Brain does is access the click data, and uses to see if what was shown matches the searchers' understanding of the search query. I've seen this with vaguer search terms where Google will actually provide a more diverse SERP in order to better match all the possible definitions/meanings of a phrase. (EG: "nfc reader" includes nfc cards, nfc payments articles, nfc video games for hand held consoles, etc.)

I am not sure that RankBrain has this CTR or not or will it going to include this feature of CTR in to it. But we all know that CRT means a lot in the past and in the current scenario as well. CTR coupled with very good bounce rate directly tell the Google algorithm to rank a particular page to rank better for relevant search query. As RankBrain is based on learning and improving long tail queries from users, so it be helping pages which has good CTR + Bounce Rate to rank better for those queries.

most people here seem to agree here that CTR is important for ranking. I'm suggesting that CTR is even *MORE* important for long tail queries - and that might be evidence of rankbrain (since we know that rankbrain is turned on for long tail queries).

anyway, hard to prove definiatively but that is my theory at this point.

One way could be to compare any CTR data you have on long tail queries from Dec 2014, when we know RankBrain definitely wasn't in use, to that on the same / similar (newer) queries from Dec 2015, when we know it definitely was in use. And then, we could have better theories on whether search results re-sorted as a result of RankBrain have better CTR or not.

yes. Exactly. And you could compare readings from today vs. say, next quarter to get a sense for how much additional weighting is being placed on ctr. My guess: the slopes of the ctr vs ranking curves will get steeper over time (greater rewards for "above average" ctr and "penalties" for below average ctr). This is one way google will really remove crap content from the serp

i know there are people out there who think that rankbrain is just some other kind of query parsing / interpretation thing. which is kind of similar to hummingbird.

i personally think they are more different and there is more going on here than just a hummingbird-like system -- i would describe rankbrain as a "rank changing system based on query interpretation based on user engagement signals" (rather than a query interpretation system that may change rank - which seems to downplay the "rank changing" aspect and omits user engagement entirely).

but again, i know there are people out there who disagree with me. and it's possible that i am wrong. but i'm comfortable with that!

As I always say that everything we do here is directly/indirectly going to affect our ranking. We do SEO not to only rank well, we do to create a strong user experience and ultimately increase in user traffic. Isn’t it? So, there is no need to worry about CTR is a ranking factor or not because many SEO experts will say yes and other will say no… Its only my opinion that CTR is an evaluating factor related to the UX of webpage.

If Google will start treating CTR as an ranking factor then may be many will start doing negative SEO and so this will create a dilemma situation for everyone to do what increase the CTR(by anyway) or UX.

And in case of Rankbrain, it’s all about the relevancy of content with the searched phrases by the help of which it filters the results. I think there is no direct connection of Rankbrain and CTR.

May be I am wrong in others opinion; anyways appreciate the your efforts in the post, it was wonderful.

It was mentioned by Search Engine Land “I gather RankBrain is mainly used as a way to interpret the searches and effectively translate them that people submit to find pages that might not have the exact words that were searched for.”

So I guess it works like a human; capable to learn the meaning behind the words and interpret the results by connecting uncommon search to a common one.

You can't rely on a single factor as a google organic ranking factor, but I think CTR is important among them. According to Virginia "RankBrain can detect how relevant your content is and it is not used on all queries.". But then the main question is, how it's going to decide which content is relevant. In this time, CTR will play his role.

yes. that is my opinion based on my research here -- that CTR is actually playing a role in helping rankbrain implement "query interpretation that impacts rankings". now, i cannot say this with 100% confidence, but still my hunch is that there is something going on here and the data agrees. I welcome others in the community to publish other studies and compare notes and get to the bottom of this mystery - together.

Great post! The takeaways were solid and I loved how you called out the fact that it's expected for a typical SEO to not be a RankBrain expert. I think too often we feel we have to immediately be an expert in a new Google wrinkle, even if the information really isn't there to absorb yet.

Quick question about "expected CTR" and long-tail vs. head terms. Forgive me if I overlooked it, but can you explain where you got expected CTR? I assume it was based on one of the more popular SERP CTR studies published but wanted to make sure.

Also, you pointed out that long-tail keywords having a higher CTR makes some sense because the search intent is more clear. I also think because of that fact, long-tail tends to display more traditional SERPs. I'm not saying all of long-tail displays the ten blue links, but generally it's the head terms that contain the most distractions (knowledge graphs, people also ask, quick answers, etc.). For a search like "bob dylan", Google understands there's a large spectrum of search intent so it hedges its bets by providing lots of diverse information in multiple formats, leading to lower organic CTRs for top listings.

Hi Tylor, yeah there isn't a ton of info about rankbrain. there's what google tells us (but can we agree they're not going to spill the beans and explain exactly how everything works? my experience with google PR is that they're directionally correct but omit stuff) and then there are patents (which may or may not be used in practice). So my approach was just to ignore it all and do a few experiments here.

Another person asked about how i got Expected CTR (see in the questions)-- i didn't use a SERP study. (why? because "expected CTR vs. ranking" curve varies widely from one niche to another). rather, i calculated the expected CTR curve for my own keyword niche, by plotting my own CTR data and extrapolating the CTR vs. Ranking function in excel. You can do this for your own keyword niche, too!

you bring up a lot of points about things that might disturb the CTR vs. Ranking curve - like knowledge graph, etc. But that is exactly why i chose not to use some generic expected CTR study. the study was designed (to the best of my abilities) to try to isolate some of that noise. thanks.

As Rand said in his comment, the takeaway part of the post is nothing to discuss about, even though

Personally I consider that RankBrain may see in CTR only as a tiny element of the its same algorithm;

I consider RankBrain is a machine learn algorithm, which only purpose is to interpreter better unknown queries and/or queries based on colloquialisms: in other words, a patch to Hummingbird. If RankBrain is a "ranking factor", as Googlers say, it is because it acts before the ranking phase of search, hence influences it;

The influence of CTR can be explained without the need to associate it to RankBrain (it could be part of the Quality Update, why not?);

All the conclusions of the post were already valid before RankBrain, as we forget that Hummingbird was already pointing to them as a needed best practice.

For this reason - and this is valid for every posts about "How Google may work" - I consider that the "theoretical" part should have had a clear "What I am going to say is my opinion, so do not take it for granted". That is the kind of phrase that:

Can avoid fruitless discussions and let the talks concentrate only on a more constructive, albeit "intense", one about what really matters: trying to understand the always changing nature of Google and how marketers can evolve with it;

Can avoid that some people will uncritically consider your (or mine or Pope Francis or Donald Trump) opinion is "the official" opinion, because it is not.

So, here few links of very good posts about RankBrain, that should be read along with this one, so to have a more complete idea about it and to help readers having all the elements to think by themselves:

Finally - DISCLAIMER: this is my opinion, so don't take it for granted - I think we are giving to RankBrain some superpower that it doesn't has or function it isn't meant for, and it should be taken for what it is: a glimpse of how that Google algorithm is evolving:

A mix of handmade algorithms and machine learn based ones;

A search engine based on semantics, where links, content and (potentially) user signals are needed in order to better understand the meaning of the information shared in Internet and its popularity and relevance;

An algorithm that will see in voice search its main asset, maybe not in the short term but indeed in the middle and long one, therefore this need Google has of understanding natural language.

Hi thanks. i linked to a lot of those resources in the post. The point of this post isn't rankbrain per se, but rather exploring the relationship between CTR and ranking, which may be due to rankbrain and/or google search core algos. Here's what i wrote:

To be clear: my goal with this post isn't to discuss tweets from Googlers, patents, research, or speculative theories.

Rather, I’m just going to ignore EVERYBODY and look at actual click data.

Since if there is a link between CTR and ranking, it should be measurable. i think what's new with this post is that it tries to quantify the relationship between CTR and ranking with observed data, as there hasn't been much data used in exploring this topic.

I would have loved that what you commented in bold was used as intro, and not in the middle of the post: that would have been enough to avoid all potential misunderstandings from the very beginning :-).

However - it's not a critic, simply my opinion - I wouldn't have cited RankBrain as "a word meant to express something more than RankBrain itself" as you do, because so it seems as if CTR influence in ranking fluctuations is the only thing RankBrain may be about, when there were studies before RankBrain was even a thing about CTR influence.

Doing experiments is always a good thing, and for that yours - as others - are always to be looked at.

Finally, regarding ignoring all the sources and only consider actual data, that can be an honest decision, but not what I would take, because sources (especially patents and what Google may eventually say) can offer perspective to actual data too, even if it is for contradicting them.

Before we look at the data, a final "disclaimer." I don’t know if what this data reveals is definitively RankBrain, or another CTR-based ranking signal that's part of the core Google algorithm. Regardless, there's something here — and I can most certainly say with confidence that CTR is impacting rank. For simplicity, I’ll be referring to this as Rankbrain.

I am not telling that CTR - as well as other users signals on SERPs - is not, maybe, a factor. I participated to tests too and consider that they play a role;

I am not telling that your post is "wrong". You're takeaways are nothing to rebut, all the contrary.

Simply I consider that calling RankBrain something that probably is not RankBrain (as you yourself write >> "or another CTR-based ranking signal...") is not helping simplifying things, but helping bringing confusion especially amongst those ones, who are not that into the specificities of the algorithm.

In other words, albeit your intentions are good, is that desire of making things simpler that then generates people asking me to optimize their websites for RankBrain or to help them taking off their sites from a RankBrain penalization, which is quite absurd, apart causing me a lot of efforts to explain them that that is not something possible (apart trying to reply to possible: "But Larry Kim says so" answers)

hi. i there's many places where we agree. i think the two areas where it’s possible that we might not totally on the same page are:

a) I appear have a stronger belief that what i'm observing in this experiment is actually rankbrain (plus other core search algos) - whereas you are saying it's "probably not rankbrain". b) I believe that rankbrain rewards exist and that you can/should optimize for it by doing various things to increase CTR and engagement rates (you use the word 'absurd' to describe when people ask you to 'optimize for rankbrain ... [protect sites from] rankbrain penalization' in your comment above.)

keep in mind that this experiment was designed in such a way to try to "isolate rankbrain".. that might be worth re-reading.

"Simply I consider that calling RankBrain something that probably is not RankBrain (as you yourself write >> "or another CTR-based ranking signal...") is not helping simplifying things"

I too don't get the focus on CTR as anything other than a feature possibly, not probably. Google is struggling with text just the same as every other ml researcher. They have made some gains through raw horsepower alone.

CTR seems like such an incredibly poor metric that makes much more sense to simply affect the order of already similar quality results, than to be a data point in training models.

Another by-product of the focus on CTR will be a major influx of botnets (ie. Hacked computers) getting instructions to execute queries on infected machines. I have already seen several reports on hacker news of node malware that does just this. Keep that in mind as we are trying to get an advantage.

Great post. No doubt CTR should be considered as a ranking factor. I agree with the idea of working on poor CTR pages since you have little to lose.CTR is one of those factors that points to "content is king". After all great content like this should have a good CTR.

Thank you for this so explicit and transparent post. Like it was said before it is important to react and improve the overall user experience rather than struggling and being worried about the rank. Best user experience implies better CTR.

Thanks for the article Larry, I just love your insights. I have being using long tail keyword strategies with my clients for a while now and its been very effect in rankings. I have been using a keyword tool that pulls in the most highly related LSI keywords and weaving that into their blog articles. I have also found it very effective to the problem or 'pain' in the market place as you said the title needs to capture the viewers interest so they stay insight.

Thank you so much for an excellent post. As many have already said, it's very informative, with incredible metaphors that illustrate your points in a concrete manner. I learned from this post and I really liked your 4 points at the end for improving CTR.

One thing, CTR feels to me a factor of really understanding your target market and what makes them tick. If you understand their pain points and address them on your site, I believe it improves the user's experience (UX). It's improved UX that ultimately will improve your ranking. So, while I see your point entirely, I don't think you can really improve your CTR unless you first do the discovery to thoroughly understanding your market. Then your list makes total sense!

thanks Annie. yeah i can agree with this. a low relative CTR means you haven't quite understood your market. a high relative CTR means you have something that is perking their curiosity. knowing your target market is key to crafting higher CTR headlines.

I really like the visuals you used to provide examples. Thanks for the advice on increasing twitter and facebook ads for the sake of increasing brand awareness only and improving CTR. I think this can be really good in a market where purchase is not inmediate (like gifts for instance) When the moment comes if the brand is know chances will for sure increase. Thanks again

thanks for this note. your gift example is a great example of how brand familiarity creates a bias, which impacts click through rates and conversion rates later on when a future need for the product/service arises. We're finding that on average, people familiar with your brand are 2x more likely to click on your listing AND twice as likely to convert, too.

If i'm correct, these strong user engagement signals may also result in improved organic rankings, which means even more clicks and sales. (a virtuous cycle!)

Thanks, happy to see you find the gift example useful. I suppose any purchase which requires information gathering can offer good advertising opportunities to get the brand know along the information gathering process.

great question. expected CTR is a function - different CTRs for different positions. Many people use industry benchmarks for CTRs but i think that's not a great way to do it, because CTR varies on your niche - for example, if there are shopping ads, or knowledge graph or other big serp elements, then that will impact organic CTR. So my idea here (used in post) is to just calculate your own expected (or average) ctr, for your own keyword niche, using your own data. Here's what you do. download your top 1000 search queries from webmaster tools. that will give you keyword, CTR and average position. Using that data, plot CTR vs. average position. (note: the assumption is that in your keyword set, you're going to have some keywords that do better than expected, some that do worse than expected, and so if you average them up, that is the average for your niche). Now, add an exponential trend line and express as a function - using that formula, you can compute average CTR for different positions. Hope that makes sense. it just requires a bit of excel abilities.

I dont know what Google consider for Website Ranking When I see low quality and zero optimize and keywords staffing low quality content website on top. I think Google just only talk the talk not act in India. There is no rule for inexperience seo companies they dont care about Rank brain, Google algorithms.

By the way CTR is very important in Ranking I saw rank improvement through Click Through Rate.

Thank you for sharing such a informative Article with us. And love to read on Moz blog.

That was quite a really good post, a lot of info and data and really well explained. I personally think that the best someone can do is to improve as much as they can the experience with the web, cause with a little bit of social media ads and a bit of patience, people is going to start notifying the web and telling the others. Finally Google will see it and reward the web with a better position.

I really agree with everything you've said. Congrats for such a good article :-)

I believe, the RankBrain is just a part of updated search algorithm. Which we should take in consideration without giving so much importance, because google quality parameters remain the same which is the only important part for now.

I think those signals are already being used by RankBrain to do query interpretation. They do for Adwords quality score, and would be crazy not to use it for organic IMHO. It just hasn't been proven yet. But it could be proven by doing a similar analysis of ranking vs. bounce rate, etc. working on it

Larry, great article. Also really enjoyed your presentation at the SEJ Summit last week.I like your 4 points on what to do now to increase CTR, especially #3 (increasing other user engagement rates like time on site & bounce rate) & #4 (utilizing social media ads & remarketing --- you also mentioned this in your SEJ presentation)

I agree that CTR is important aspect of SEO (which i never took into consideration thou now i will) after reading the post, since I am into PPC by large (management) I always thought CTR is just aspect of PPC campaigns.

isn't that interesting? CTR improvement is probably the #1 or #2 most leveraged form of PPC campaign optimization - yet hasn't really been a primary focus of SEO optimizations (links and content have trumped CTR, historically). I do think this will change going forward and mosf of the strategies used in PPC to raise CTRs will apply here in organic search.

Hi Larry, I would like to add that if the CTR of your SERP position is higher - means you get more number of traffic to your website, which will result in higher rankings. So CTR and ranking position are fairly affecting each other. Right?
Also, a high CTR can raise your ad position even if your bid is lower than those above you, but I think gradually this metric is less aggressively implemented. So how do we Calculate pure CTR?

Hi Carlos, sorry if this was lost. We are seeing that having a sustained high (above expected) CTR for a given organic spot results in non-temporary (i.e. lasting) gains in organic search rank -- and that this effect is even more profound for long tail keywords.

No one knows the exact, all-inclusive parts that go into ranking and so all parts should be looked at. The amount of times I had to explain this to the “self-proclaimed SEO gurus” I work with (or even the other extreme that correlation does not equal causation) is surprisingly high. Google must reward websites that have high click-through rates which relates to Rand’s test of the influence of CTR on Google’s search results. His results seemingly WOULD persists if the pattern is over a longer period of time. “Google goes where the people are.”

Also I was not too surprised that the long tail terms have a higher CTR than the head terms, wouldn’t that be just because there is more information to make the results more accurate? Would the long-tail keyword terms with high CTRs be more likely in top positions because they rank for more words simply because they have more content (the content is king argument)? I would be curious to see the difference in content (length, quality, etc.) on the sites that you were measuring.

thanks Jp -- Regarding your comment on the long tail terms have a higher CTR than the head terms - I agree that is expected. But it's weird isn't it? that when i run the same keywords in paid search, we get an inverted curve? (see post for that part of the experiment).

why are long tail keywords with above-expected CTRs *so much* more likely to be in top spots (so much more than expected?) -- i think (just my theory) -- that is rankbrain doing the "query interpretation that may cause re-ordering of search results".

I'm working on some additional large studies related to bounce rates/time on site, conversion rates, etc. vs. rankings -- will share as soon as i'm finished.

OK fine, let's assume CTR is ranking factor. Then Why Google refuse to accept it. Due to spamming? If yes then as you said, they have already strong click fraud algorithm, I have even read one news about. they lost one law case against one adsense publisher because they don't want to reveal how their click fraud algorithm work. If CTR is really ranking factor then they don't have to hide it from public. They already said CTR is ranking factor for local search query, because it make sense to all.

OK, you might already hear about Zero Position. Just search on Google "Best strategy game for PC", there you will see two result P1, and P2. P2 is on zero position while P1 is on first position. Now we can clearly assume that p2 will get more clicks because it has nice snippet and often people click on it. So Will Google replace their position. No. I am watching their position from a long time, and it did not change.

yes!. old advice was to do keyword-heavy titles and descriptions in order to cast a wider net of queries to rank for. (totally made sense). going forward it is my belief that irresistably clicky headlines and descriptions will win the day!

CTR matters a lot I remember an experiment by Rand Fishkin which he did in 2014 if I am not wrong he tweet about to search IMEC Lab and asked people to click on his blog and results were shown within few hours I hope you also remember that Rand experiment so CTR is a strong and important factors in ranking.

Yes -- there is a part of the algo called "query deserves freshness" that many believe gives higher rankings to trending searches and search results. it's possible that when we ask people to search on a particular query and click on a specific search result, all around the same time, that may be triggering QDF (among other things). My experiments here are not about QDF, because i was using steady state click-through-rates and queries - (not a spike in click through rates and queries).

All written are facts that work and bring many businesses expected from the activity on the Internet.I think it's time to bring up another issue that without doubt related to the topic of your post and is - whether businesses want to be ranked high in Google's organic results is prepared for it at all?

For many years I have been involved in SEO in particular and in the field of Internet marketing in general, I have noticed that many who come to higher positions and are improving traffic due to these achievements, still not satisfied then their frustration directed toward the company that manages the network activity for them.

What I mean is before getting satisfactory results, the utmost importance, is to think what to do with all entrances to the customer's site come from activity on Google and of course it will be associated with the site's ability to convert traffic into money.

wow kind of a philosophical question. yeah i agree with the sentiment. over the years, internet marketing has been increasingly technical the focus may have shifted away from core marketing activities like building your brand and creating demand for your products and services, to chasing algorithms and rankings and likes, etc. it's important to remember that the latter only is useful if the former is in place.

Excellent post. I am left wondering why there is a sort of tunnel vision in this post on CTR as a label for model performance when quaily raters have been producing highly guided quality evaluations for years. I understand that is the target of this post, but a disproportionate amount of time is spent on rankbrain with a supposition that CTR is the target of Rankbrain (a fancy term for trained ml models that are valuable in several important areas lately) but still need to be trained and evaluated on empirical and verifiable data.

i would summarize the post as follows: while it hasn't historically been the key focus of SEOs to do CTR optimizations, i think there's a ton of leverage here. At a minimum, you'll get more clicks (due to higher CTR). but in addition to that, i'm finding that you'll get bonus points in the form of higher organic rankings. AND, you'll get even higher organic rankings for long tail queries (which i think may be due to rankbrain - but can't confirm 100%).

i think it's great. basically domain authority, in my opinion, is way too overweighted in the algo.

I can publish mediocre long tail content on a high DA site and beat out more specialized, better content on lower DA sites. by leveraging user signals like CTR, they can figure out which article really is the best.

Not too worried about negative SEO since, google already fights click-spam in AdWords (a 50 billion dollar business where there is huge incentives for publishers and competitor advertisers to commit fraud, and huge incentives for google to fight it) - that cat and mouse game has been going on for 15 years so they have a lot of knowledge in this space that in theory could be also used to fight organic CTR fraud.